Andrew Keith :: Grudge ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Raised by rednecks and roughnecks, I reckon no one holds a grudge like a southerner. I’m from Johnson City, Tennessee – yes, the one from “Wagon Wheel” and I sure hope I’m the only ten-you-see. Happy to...
Nancy Werking Poling :: Oscar’s Bane ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My regional identity is confused. Though born in Indiana, I grew up in Orlando before Disney and attended Robert E. Lee Junior High, where we flew a Confederate flag. After living in the Chicago area for almost...
Courtney McEunn :: Sour ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in the swampy craplands they call central Florida. I ran around the sand roads barefoot, swam in the giant oil puddles they called lakes, went tubing and canoeing alongside alligators and snakes on more...
Lee Wright :: Southern Sunday Snow ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Growing up in northwest Georgia, very near Chattanooga, right on the Tennessee state line, my parents would drag me to a small independent Pentecostal church every Sunday morning as well as every Sunday and Wednesday night. It...
Anna Davis-Abel :: Southern Sweet Tea ::
Southern legitimacy statement– The South is inextricable from me as my bones. I was born in Mississippi to two families that traced their lineages to poor antebellum share croppers and then grew up in Alabama. I left the south for...
Narya Deckard :: “Thinking About Kentucky and the Wolfpen Poems,” “The River Yearning,” and “Cicadas” ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Appalachia, just south of the Mason Dixon, That invisible line the weight of a dead mule. Ramps, trillium, and mayapples Showed me where I ended And West Virginia began. Appalachia, a few hundred miles south Of that...
April 2024. The South is blooming.
Well, it came in like a lamb and kinda’ stayed that way, except for a couple really crappy rain days. Now it’s April. The Yellowing has begun in full force. Pockets of killer pollen everywhere. Meanwhile, back on the ranch...
Eric Olsen :: Life, Legacy, Fractured Spines, and the Power of Now ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a grits, sweet tea, and collards enthusiast. I have a recipe for each that I make myself regularly. *ya’ll need to read this essay.. Life, Legacy, Fractured Spines, and the Power of Now April 13,...
Barry Gordon Thompson-Cook :: It Was On a Bayou ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Barry Gordon Thompson-Cook was born in Louisiana and is buried there. In between, he lived in Dallas, Omaha before moving back to Louisiana. He left his beloved Opelousas to marry a Yankee, to the horror of his...
Holly Thompson :: The Heeler’s Lyric; The Facts of the Legal Matter ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: My submissions are sent to you with a promise of Southern Legitimacy, as I was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (birthplace of the atomic bomb) and continue to capture and pen down just a few of the...
Jane Sasser :: Why She Poisoned Him; Ode to Barn Clothes; Bargains ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I attended high school in a small community in North Carolina where our track team consisted of six members, and my friend and I had to convince the coach to let us girls on the team. We...
Savannah S. Miller. :: In Tennessee, Part II ::
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in a little town in southern Virginia whose claim to fame was an extremely popping Dairy Queen and a gas station with fried chicken that could put any KFC to shame. I spent four...
John Riley ::What Did She Lose?::
Southern Legitimacy Statement A field did stretch between our old house in Randolph County, with its recently exposed plumbing that froze every winter, and a much nicer house across the field. The people who lived in the nice house wanted...
Poetry
Essays
